The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study: 5 Year of Progress in Veterinary Health and Biobanking

Five years ago Fisher BioServices, a part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, embarked on a partnership with the Morris Animal Foundation to take veterinary research to a new level. Since cancer is the leading cause of death in dogs over the age of two and golden retrievers (GRs) are at high risk of cancer development, Fisher BioServices is supporting the Foundation’s efforts in working to define the incidence and risk factors for cancer in man’s best friend.

The advanced therapy supply chain is complex and made up of multiple moving parts. With milestone achievements such as the recent FDA approval of Novartis' CAR-T cell therapy Kymriah™ it's essential that we address the challenges of delivering these ground breaking therapies to patients on a global scale.

The Importance of Early Planning for Clinical Supplies: Part II

In Part I of this blog series, I identified some of the challenges in supporting clinical trials and a few reasons why early planning for clinical supplies is very important. In Part II, let’s look at three areas of clinical supply support that can greatly benefit from having the support team involved from the start and given ample time to design and contribute to the protocol:

The Importance of Early Planning for Clinical Supplies: Part I

Beating other investors to an offer or getting ample time to support a clinical trial can yield big benefits and returns. The advantages from the financial perspective can be fairly evident but the gains from having plenty of time to plan, design and implement support functions for clinical supplies may not be so obvious. In this two part blog series, I will discuss the challenge of supporting clinical trials and the importance of early planning for clinical supplies.

Cooling Valley Fever: Unique Kits for a Unique Clinical Trial

Fisher BioServices supports clinical trials in numerous ways, including acquiring and distributing clinical agents and the design and assembly of biospecimen collection kits. Recently, the staff members at the Clinical Agent and Specimen Repository (CASR), which Fisher BioServices operates for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), were challenged to support a particularly unique clinical trial: The efficacy of fluconazole in the treatment of Valley Fever.

When navigating through the various phases of a cell therapy clinical trial, it's important that each phase "sets the stage" for those which follow. All activities that take place in Phase 1 will ultimately impact Phase 2, and so on through to commercialization. This blog will focus on the operational shift from Phase 1 to Phase 2 and the associated challenges with doing so.

From Point A to B in the USA: Transporting Dangerous Goods

There are many things to consider when shipping dangerous goods; the type of material, how it's being transported, and the governing body all play an integral role in getting your material from Point A to Point B.

At Fisher BioServices, we are well versed in the management of dangerous goods; ranging from kit production to transportation. In this blog, we'll touch on some of the important information associated with dangerous goods, how they are transported, and the importance of personnel training.

Standardizing Biosample Management: Why Use Collection Kits?

Whether you are conducting a phase 3 clinical trial of a new therapy or looking for biomarkers, you will need to collect samples, and that leads to a number of questions. How do you collect the biosamples in such a way as to preserve their usefulness—maintain molecular integrity—for your specific (or unknown) downstream analyses and assays? How many samples will be needed, how many “collectors” will be involved, and how many locations? How long do the samples have to be preserved, and how will they be stored? And how will you manage the data?

Here are some basics to help with planning sample collection and to help make the process as cost-effective as possible.

When setting up a clinical trial or a longitudinal study, every decision revolving around sample management: collection, lab processing, storage, disssemination, and data management, is crucial to its success. For collection of clinical participants' biospecimens, one aspect that requires significant thought and planning is how the needed patient samples (e.g. whole blood, tissue) will be collected at the clinical sites. Sponsors, CROs, and clinical investigators must decide if they are going to provide their sites with the tubes and other supplies in bulk, or provide patient-specific or visit-specific collection kits. Below are five points to consider when making your decision: